By Meladi Brewer
DailyAdvocate.com
VERSAILLES — The Versailles Village Council met Wednesday to discuss Arbor Day, public hearings, and Community Communication Event Coordinator.
The Versailles Village Council proclaimed April 29 as Arbor Day in Versailles.
“We encourage all citizens to help celebrate Arbor Day and support efforts to protect our trees,” Mayor Jeff Subler said.
There will be a tree planting at 1:15 p.m. at Ward Park on April 29.
Next the council discussed the Franklin Street right-of-way plat which will dedicate 0.111 acres of land to Franklin Street.
“We’re going to reconstruct Franklin Street, and we asked the developers to dedicate this 0.111 acres to allow for a 60 -foot right of way,” Busse said.
This is planned due to the predicted traffic regarding additional apartments on the street. Busse explained Franklin Street is currently a glorified alley that needs to be widened into a regular street.
“This will be a nice addition,” Busse said.
The council approved a public hearing for May 25 at 6:50 p.m. regarding the rezoning of a newly created Lot 1040 in the Edgewood at Versailles Phase 2. The hearing will be held to consider the rezoning of lot 1040.
“That was something we knew was coming because the only way to reconstruct this condo plat within our zoning code is to rezone that to a PUD,” Busse said.
He explained in a PUD the exact plan used to move forward will be submitted, it is reviewed, and the PUD can be approved from there. It will be the exact plan that has to be followed, and if they wish to modify the plans then they must resubmit it to Planning and Zoning and the process starts all over again.
The Versailles Village Council talked about their discussions with the Darke County Visitors Bureau about the possibility of the Visitors Bureau providing additional services to the Village of Versailles by hiring a Community Event Coordinator.
“There’s a couple goals here. One is to get a little bit of coordination between all these different organizations by kind of building up a calendar of events and try to get these organizations to work together,” Busse said.
With the new amphitheater being in Heritage Park, there needs to be a way to bring the people back to Main Street to eat at the restaurants either before or after and shop as the events are no longer being held in the heart of Versailles’s business district. Busse continues to describe how old events would shut down the road and even though it was inconvenient to residents trying to freely drive around, it was good for businesses along the roadway due to convenience.
“How do you capitalize on that (amphitheater events) and get these people back downtown either that day, or how do you get them to come back to Versailles?” Busse asked.
He continues to explain the importance of needing someone who could devote some time to the idea. This individual would provide 24 hours of service per month at a cost of approximately $10,000 per year. Discussions about future funding from the Versailles bed tax were brought forth with the idea that the more bed tax is collected in Versailles, the lower the local match would have to be.
“Sixty-seven percent of the bed tax we collect goes to the Visitors Bureau. What we talked about was the more bed tax the new hotel would generate, which goes to the Visitors Bureau, the less we would have to pay for these extra services,” Busse said.
If approved, this position would start in July.
To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].
